Times Watchdog Report: What came of worries over layoffs at Grissom High?

Bob Gathany / Huntsville TimesParents, teachers and students packed the Huntsville City School Board room and filled the hallways on May 20 to speak against teacher layoffs.

Following last year's budget cuts and teacher layoffs, Principal Tom Drake at Grissom High School is not as worried about his own school as he is about the entire system.

In May, scores of his students and their parents, many dressed in Grissom orange, had descended upon the Huntsville school board, packing the aisles, demanding a change in leadership.

They worried that layoffs would dull Grissom's academic edge, that their school was losing too many Advanced Placement classes, that there wouldn't be extra counselors to help students get into top colleges.

The board listened. Two weeks later, the board president announced that Superintendent Ann Roy Moore had lost the confidence of the community. Parents and pastors from north Huntsville packed meetings to support Moore, but it was too late. The board unanimously decided to look for a new superintendent.

So what about Grissom High? Whatever happened there? To all those AP courses and those counselors? Did Grissom lose its edge?

Drake this week said the AP situation has been a "challenge," but has largely been worked out. He's not as optimistic about the lost counselors.

Tom Drake, principal of Grissom High

He pledged Grissom will offer 26 AP courses this year, same as last year, although it hasn't been easy. He lost experienced AP teachers to retirements and layoffs, teachers who accounted for 11 of those 26 courses.

Teachers who transferred from Lee High, he said, took over AP economics and AP English. He moved one of his own teachers to cover another AP English slot. He had to pay about $3,500 each to send three teachers for the private AP training this summer.

He's still settling on someone to handle AP computer science. After the layoff of an AP art teacher, he said, Grissom scrapped plans to add AP art history this year.

The situation with the counselors, which literally led to tears from a few students in May, is unchanged. Grissom went from five counselors to just three for 2,000 students. That was a big deal at Grissom, where one counselor had long been able to focus on arranging college interviews and helping with applications.

Now Grissom has about one counselor for every 675 students, Drake said. Butler and Johnson High have fewer than 675 students each, although Butler has two counselors. "I'm going to be truthful with you," Drake said. "It's just an unfair workload on my counselors."

Moore on Wednesday said all high schools lost counselors. She said Butler was reduced to one and half counselors, but the school chose to use federal grants to fill two full-time slots.

Meanwhile, the system continues to struggle with transfers, as parents pull children from the same few schools. In the last two weeks, more than 100 students were approved to leave Butler for another school. About 100 more were approved to transfer out of Johnson and 73 were approved to leave Westlawn Middle. All three must offer students the choice under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But Huntsville High is overcrowded with more than 1,700 students this week. Drake said Grissom has only had room to accept 15 transfers so far. So those transfers will end up filling available space at Columbia High or Lee High, leaving empty classrooms behind.

Still, Drake said he is most concerned about something that effects all city schools evenly. That's this system's sudden inability to recruit to replace people who retire or quit. That's because every hire this year, he said, must be made on a temporary basis.

Congress, with August's stimulus package, directed $150 million to Alabama to help pay teacher salaries Huntsville will get $4.6 million of that. That could diminish the chance of more layoffs next year.

But for now, Drake said, anybody who has experience isn't going to come to Huntsville for a "temporary" job. Grissom, he said, is unable to draw from out of state or even from nearby systems such as Athens. "They would not even come for an interview," Drake said. "That's what's hurting Huntsville City Schools right now."